Comments Off on Death of a Salesman: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2

And so the Harry Potter film franchise finally lumbers its way to a crunching, jarring standstill with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 (HP7b).
But how to review the film without giving away any plot spoilers or visual treats?
Difficult, but we’ll have a go.
So, to sum up.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 (HP7a) gave us the... [Read More..]

Beck Lanehart.
Just like her music, Beck’s name is a glorious confusion of styles; a little bit of US, a lot of UK.
I once heard Beck describe her music as ‘funeral’ which is wildly inaccurate, but a great indication of just how seriously Beck doesn’t take herself.
And yet, my friend, you should take this stylish, diminutive... [Read More..]

the latest in the series of music festival-related articles
Reinforcing our belief that the mega-music festivals of the UK are just dinosaurs, sitting around waiting for the asteroid to strike, this weekend we went to D-Fest, in Drayton, Oxfordshire.
In the spacious rear-garden of the Red Lion pub, two performing marquees were erected, a barbecue was... [Read More..]

Some time ago we had an email from a listener in Portugal. Jenn said she was going to start her own show and wanted some advice on what to do and what to avoid.
We replied to Jenn, but as time has passed, her letter has prompted me to think that maybe we should produce a non-technical answer to the question ‘How do I set up my own podcast?’.
In... [Read More..]

The concept behind Dot To Dot is simple.
take one city with a clutch of venues, nice and close together
arrange dozens of talented musicians to feed the public hunger for top quality music
mount back-to-back performances in that city for one massive night of music, and then when it’s all over
shift absolutely everything to another city and do the... [Read More..]

It’s really not that often that something falls in to the inbox that is so good it strips me of oxygen, leaving me breathless and panting on the studio floor.
It happened yesterday. I spent last night in a happy, happy place; surrounded by an achingly beautiful wall of sound, a wall built so high it defied planetary order and stretched as far... [Read More..]

Alex Marsh is an author, freelance writer, editor, blogger and sickeningly humorous person. His first book, the critically acclaimed ‘Sex and Bowls and Rock and Roll: How I Swapped My Rock Dreams for Village Greens‘ blends anecdotes of being a young musician in a band, with being an active member of the surprisingly competitive world of... [Read More..]

You know when you’ve been knocking yourself out at your job for the last five days?
From Monday to Friday you’ve given and given and given and then given a little bit more? And Friday night finally gets here and all you want to do is crash out at 9.30?
Then you wake on Saturday and you have enough energy to eat, dress, buy some food, cook a crash... [Read More..]

Singer, songwriter, guitarist and New York music all rounder Brad Hammonds sees his new solo album ‘Code of a Mad Man’ released this month and the artist behind various musical guises in the past now has to face up to being in the spotlight alone.
After cutting his musical teeth with Chicago based three-piece, Baddigo, Brad found his way... [Read More..]

We’ve looked at and listened to War Tapes before. Personally, I have a reluctance to revisit bands when they release new albums or EPs. It’s like the second date with Janet from science class. The first time was a heady mix of cool and exciting and neither of us had to try very hard to be interesting because we had a lot to learn about each other... [Read More..]